On Tuesday We Took Retcon
by Peregrin Ionad
Summary: On Tuesday We Took Retcon.  By Wednesday We Were Half-way Back   In which our heroes awaken, and realise they don't remember a great deal.  Set straight after the end of Risk Assessment.


**On Tuesday We Took Retcon. (By Wednesday We Were Half-way Back)**

Ianto Jones found himself waking up in the dark, which, in itself, wasn't terribly unusual. He found himself lying on top of Jack, which also was quite common.

What was unexpected was that they were more in than out of the, well, pond, for want of a better name, at the bottom of the water tower and that Gwen's hand was grasping his ankle.

Given his splitting headache and the presence of Gwen he would have chalked it down to a little too much whisky in their last coffee of the day (they'd found a bottle Owen had stashed away in the mortuary and were drinking it, now and then, in his memory), followed by a little too much of Jack's sherry and a perhaps a sip of the watermelon Bacardi Breezer Ianto had stashed in his 'Butler's Pantry' (Because they might be highly trained Torchwood operatives, but they were also young and Welsh and needed little excuse to forget everything for a little while.)

But in his heart, Ianto knew something was wrong. There was a taste in his mouth that was too bitter for alcohol and it was cold, colder than usual, which told him the heating was down. That meant no power. He shook Gwen's shoulder and pressed a quick kiss to Jack's lips. Everything would be better when the others woke up, he told himself, because then he could forget how cold and wet and scared he was and get back to being Torchwood.

Gwen awoke with a groan, looking, from Jack (still out for the count) to Ianto (who was pulling him from the water.) It was dark. They really ought to replace the bulbs.

"Dead?" She asked, then felt quite insensitive and would have apologised, but Ianto shuck his head.

"Just unconscious. But we have a problem."

"Shit." No wonder it seemed dark. The only light was a torch, angled on one of the desks.

"Exactly. No power, three weevils roaming somewhere on the lower levels and..." He laid Jack on the floor and picked up what Gwen could just make out to be a newspaper, "... I don't know about you, but I'm missing a week's worth of memories."

"Retconned?" Jack Harkness was fuming. Looking damn good whilst doing it, but furious all the same.

"Retconned." Ianto Jones confirmed with a small sigh. The conversation had been going in a similar vein for over ten minutes and Ianto willed Gwen to hurry back to the boardroom before he went completely mad.

"Have you checked your diary? 'Cos, you know-"

"I'm not sure where it is." Ianto interjected, quickly. "I think it might be at my flat. That's the problem with loosing a week's worth of memories. Things get lost."

Jack didn't do subtle, but he realised Ianto was probably talking about more than missing diaries. He swiftly, and not at all awkwardly, changed the subject.

"So, uh, it's definitely just a week?"

"More or less" Ianto replied. "The last thing I remember is, well..." The relief he had felt at Jack's change of subject vanished. The last thing he remembered clearly was the rather large, and slightly embarrassing, row at his flat. All about those bloody...

"... Coffins." Gwen answered for him.

"Coffins." Ianto agreed. "Then bamm. Retcon, temporary lockdown, waking up freezing cold and wet. We really need to change that water more often, I don't even want to think about what is in there."

Gwen switched on the screen and pressed a button on the remote.

"Here's the CCTV footage for the last week. I've taken it back to Wednesday morning, which, from what I can tell, is the last thing we all remember. So I suppose we just fast forward through until we see something unusual."

Ianto and Jack regarded her for a moment.

"Unexpected?" She tried. "Odd even by our standard?"

"Agnes Havisham." Jack growled. "I might have known."

"I'm sorry." Gwen said "Agnes who?"

"Havisham." Jack replied. "She's Torchwood, but don't bother looking her up, Ianto. She's not in any record." He sounded rather grim.

"So," Gwen said. "She's Torchwood."

"Torchwood's assessor."

"Bad news then?" Ianto asked. His voice was bright, but his smile fake.

"Bad, bad news."

"... So," Rhys inquired casually, "You don't remember anything that happened last week?" By God, he thought, talk about the luck of the devil.

"No." Gwen replied. "Not a sausage. Ianto and Jack are the same. Did anything interesting happen?"

From the stress she put on 'interesting' Rhys knew that Gwen meant 'alien'. He considered a quick "No, love, nothing at all." but then the telly flicked back to the news headlines. Rhys saw the tales of Giant Oil Monsters splayed across the screen and knew this was one secret he was never going to be able to keep, certainly not from his wife; alien hunter extraordinare.

"Interesting's one way of putting it."

"Jack." Ianto's voice came from the doorway to Jack's office and caught him by surprise. He hid it and asked Ianto what he had found.

"There's a funny thing with the retcon." Ianto started. He seemed unsure as to how to carry on. "You see, someone has moved the pills around. Or the labels. I'm not quite sure."

Jack shot him a look.

"Well, I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been counting to see how many pills were gone. There should have been at least three missing from the level four, maybe more considering we lost a whole week, but there are none missing. I checked the others and there are six missing from the level one."

Jack nodded and Ianto carried on.

"So I looked closer at the pills and they're all in the wrong bottles. When we were retconned Agnes didn't check the pills, she just put them in our drinks."

"She tried to take all our memories." Jack said.

"Well, mine and Gwen's, at least." agreed Ianto. "I'm not sure how she thought she could erase all yours."

"Do you 'spose that's it, then?" Gwen asked as they sat in the boardroom, each nursing a cup of Ianto's coffee.

Jack shrugged.

"Agnes Havisham is like a bad penny. But maybe this time we've seen the last of her."

"Maybe." Ianto echoed dully.

Jack laid what he hoped was a comforting hand on Ianto's knee.

"Where's your optimism, Mr Jones." He said, but his eyes met Gwen's across the table and she could read the worry in them.

"I'll never drink tea again." Gwen said, before an awkward silence could fall.

"Or read Dickens." Ianto said, adding "Little Dorrit." after Gwen and Jack shot him odd looks.

Gwen laughed.

"Agnes never went anywhere without Little Dorrit."


End file.
